City Spins False Securix Narrative, Moves Half Million Dollars to Federal Court

OCEAN SPRINGS, MS — The City of Ocean Springs announced Tuesday it will hand over nearly half a million dollars collected from its Securix uninsured-motorist enforcement program, calling the move a demonstration of “transparency, accountability, and compliance with state and federal law.”

In a November 4 press release, officials said the decision to deposit the funds into federal court followed the city’s determination that the program “did not function as intended.” The statement characterized the city’s role as corrective, saying Ocean Springs “terminated the contract in May 2023” after discovering problems with Securix’s system.

However, records, contracts, and internal communications reviewed by GC Wire contradict that account. The Securix program was not an outside vendor’s misstep; it was a city-driven operation led by then-City Attorney Robert Wilkinson, his son Alexander Wilkinson, and Police Chief Mark Dunston, all of whom had roles with the program that were not disclosed to the Board at the time, according to internal emails and interviews.

The Contract Required Compliance With Law

The 2021 Securix contract required Ocean Springs to handle citations in accordance with Mississippi’s Uniform Traffic Ticket Code, including court filing, judicial oversight, and record retention.

But that process was never followed.

Flagged motorists would receive a “ticket” in the mail asking them to attend an online diversion course and pay a $300 fine. The notices issued by the automated system did not go through the municipal court system, yet each citation included a printed court date. Those who chose to fight the tickets were met in the court lobby by Wilkinson’s son or another representative of Securix, who explained payment options. The names of those flagged never actually appeared on the court docket.

City Clerk Patty Gaston confirmed the arrangement in a May 2025 email, writing that the citations “were not ran thru our court system” and that the officers involved “were paid by Securix, not the City.”

Despite this admission, a series of letters mailed to flagged motorists, signed by Police Chief Dunston, included threats of license suspension and high court costs if the recipient did not pay — actions that could not be taken without proper court involvement.

The decision to bypass the courts was not a clerical error; it was a deliberate city policy that violated both the contract and Mississippi law.

City Attorney’s Dual Role

Documents obtained through public-records requests and internal correspondence show that City Attorney Robert Wilkinson maintained direct involvement in the program while also representing Securix in private practice.

In one email, Wilkinson described himself as “the face of Securix” to the mayor and Board of Aldermen. He regularly advised city officials on the program’s structure and coordinated with the municipal court system to arrange the faux lobby “arraignments.”

Wilkinson’s son, Alexander, held the position of Director of Operations, while Police Chief Dunston, who was charged with overseeing the police side of the program, was simultaneously on the Securix payroll, taking in $5,000 per month from company, according to Jonathon Miller, Chairman of Securix LLC.

Former Alderman Rickey Authement said none of these relationships were disclosed to the Board of Aldermen or the public.

The city’s deal with Securix split revenues down the middle, with half going to the city and the other half to Securix. In a 2024 interview, Miller said the bulk of their side went to Wilkinson and his partners at Frontier Strategies, a political consulting firm owned by Josh Gregory and Quinton Dickerson.

Further investigation revealed a network of undisclosed contracts connected to the Securix rollout in Ocean Springs. A separate agreement referencing payments of $6 per paid citation to local developer Joe Cloyd included a confidentiality clause that prohibited either party from acknowledging the existence of the deal, according to a copy reviewed by GC Wire.

“He’s going to give us insurance in Ocean Springs if things get rough after the citations hit,” Gregory wrote about Cloyd in a 2022 email to Securix management that included then-City Attorney Wilkinson.

Federal Lawsuit Targets the Program’s Structure

In 2022, a Mississippi driver named Amy Divine filed a federal class-action lawsuit — Divine v. Securix LLC — alleging that Securix and its affiliates operated an illegal ticketing and debt-collection scheme that deprived motorists of due process.

The lawsuit names Securix and its partner companies, but not the City of Ocean Springs. However, the facts alleged in the complaint describe the system Ocean Springs operated: mailed citations bearing the city’s seal, no judicial review, and threats of license suspension for nonpayment.

Legal analysts say Ocean Springs’ decision to transfer its $468,681.13 in Securix proceeds into federal court may be an attempt to avoid being added to that lawsuit. By voluntarily filing an interpleader, the city portrays itself as a neutral stakeholder rather than a participant in the underlying conduct.

Uncertain Legal Ground

An interpleader allows a party holding disputed funds to deposit them with the court so the court can determine how to distribute the money. The procedure is meant to protect neutral third parties who risk multiple claims over the same funds.

But Ocean Springs might not be seen as a neutral party. The city created the enforcement system, collected the proceeds, and kept them for more than two years. Under federal law, a court can deny an interpleader if it is found the filer has “unclean hands” — meaning the filer’s own actions caused the dispute.

If the court rejects the filing, Ocean Springs could remain exposed to claims of unlawful collection, misuse of public authority, and breach of contract. Even if the interpleader is accepted, the city could still be compelled to turn over records and answer for how the money was obtained.

A Nearly Identical Scheme: Intellisafe

The Securix operation in Ocean Springs was not an isolated case. While still serving as city attorney, Wilkinson, along with former Police Chief Dunston, launched a separate company called Intellisafe LLC, a private traffic-enforcement venture that used almost the same structure and language as the Securix program in Ocean Springs.

Corporate records list Wilkinson as a founding principal of Intellisafe, which promoted itself to other Mississippi municipalities as a “public-private safety solution.” Like Securix, Intellisafe offered camera-based ticketing and “diversion” programs that bypassed traditional courts and allowed fines to be paid through private online portals.

Several of those cities later faced complaints and lawsuits alleging the same legal problems now surrounding Securix — tickets issued without judicial oversight, missing court filings, and threats of license suspension made outside proper legal channels. One of those cases is currently pending in federal court, naming Intellisafe and its partners as defendants in a civil-rights action over due-process violations. Another, in Forest County, is seeking a judge’s permission to move forward with criminal charges.

At the time these contracts were signed, Wilkinson was still the official city attorney for Ocean Springs. He did not disclose his ownership of Intellisafe to the Board of Aldermen or to the public. The overlap shows that the issues with Securix were not the result of an outside vendor’s mistake, as the city’s press release suggests, but part of a recurring model overseen and promoted by Wilkinson himself while he occupied public office.

The replication of a similar system under a different company name undermines the city’s claim that the Securix arrangement merely “did not function as intended.” It functioned exactly as intended — and was later exported statewide through Wilkinson’s own enterprise.

GC Wire’s Ongoing Investigation

GC Wire has spent more than a year investigating the Securix operation and the city’s handling of related public records. GC Wire reviewed thousands of pages of documents and hundreds of internal emails showing how Ocean Springs officials concealed details of the program, denied access to public information, and invoked attorney–client privilege in cases where no legal privilege applied.

Despite evidence of clear conflicts of interest, exposed misrepresentations, and inconsistent statements made even to state investigators, the Board of Aldermen recently voted to continue retaining Wilkinson’s private law firm as the city’s outside counsel.

Earlier GC Wire reports documented:

• Emails showing Wilkinson directing city staff on Securix enforcement while representing the company privately;
• A second ticketing venture, Intellisafe LLC, launched by Wilkinson using the same model while still serving as city attorney;
• False and contradictory letters sent by city officials to oversight agencies describing Wilkinson’s alleged “recusal” from Securix matters; and
• Repeated denials of records requests for Wilkinson’s emails under the pretense of legal privilege, despite the city’s own admission that he was conflicted.

The unanswered questions about the money’s custody, the withheld emails, and the false statements to investigators leave a record not of transparency, but of avoidance.

Rewriting the Narrative

Ocean Springs’ November 4 press release casts the city as a reformer that identified a flawed program and acted to fix it. Mayor Bobby Cox is quoted as saying the decision to hand over the money “reflects our commitment to accountability and to protecting the interests of our residents.”

But the evidence shows the city was the architect, not the victim, of the Ocean Springs version of the Securix system.

The contract said follow the law. City officials didn’t.

The city attorney and police chief charged with ensuring compliance profited from both sides.

The money now being turned over sat untouched for years while the city denied it had anything to hide.

In the end, the city’s statement of accountability reads less like transparency and more like damage control — a Hail Mary attempt to rewrite a story the documents already tell for themselves.

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